! ! 3 1/2" PC Drive/s on a beeb ! !

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Sat Dec 31, 2011 9:58 am

As you've got a Master then it has the newer disk interface and should work with that drive. Again cable should be fine, just follow the advice in the first post in the thread. Harder bit is powering the drive. You'll need to connect from external source or make a cable up from the Beeb, not always easy as the connectors are a bit rare. Might have to salvage from your old 5.25 drive system. Note you'll need to use 720K disks, if you want to use higher capacity then this is a bit trickier, see this thread

http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic.php?f=3&t=1884

Read it all way to end (it'll take a while)

Although unless you want the authentic sound of a disk drive and you've got the funds a modern CF Card drive replacement may be a good option.

Post by **1024MAK** » Sun Jan 01, 2012 3:02 pm

The Maplin drive is likely to be manufactured for use in a "IBM" PC (drive “A”). As such it will be designed to respond as the first drive in a PC, but this is the “second” drive on a Beeb system.

You can get the drive to respond as the first drive (drive 0) either by modifying the drive (if you can solder) or my making up a cable as described here http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... =60#p26418

See also the pic in the post just above this. The Maplin cable can be modified by cutting off the section with the connectors and the twist. Then fit a new IDC connector once you have modified it with a “BBC” twist. Or you can just buy new IDC connectors and new ribbon cable, put in a “BBC” twist, then fit the connectors

For more on old floppy drives, disks and problems see http://stardot.org.uk/forums/viewtopic. ... 735#p42850

Mark K.

redland_doug · Post by **redland_doug** » Sun Jan 01, 2012 11:20 pm

Hi Guys,

Thanks for the tips! I decided to have a go at getting the 5.25" drives working, but have failed. I got some isopropyl alcohol & 3.5" cleaning disk from Maplins (best I could do). I butchered the disk to get the fabric disk out, which I cut into strips. Then I took the 5.25" twin drive apart, and carefully cleaned the heads with the strips dowsed with the alcohol (with the aid of a cocktail stick). I got a lot of crap off the heads! But no difference...

I tried the two single drives I have as well - but nothing works - lots of error 18 at 0 00:00. Before I go shooting off to get a 3.5" drive, I want to be sure its not my Master that's popped. Remember I've only just got it, so its an unknown quantity too. Could the controller or something else have died? Is there an easy way to test? Ideally someone in or around Bristol with a known working drive would be great at this point!

By the way, the twin drive is an MD802-E, if that means anything to anyone.

PS - how do the CF readers work? I heard that the Beeb uses 256 byte sectors, but flash cards present a 512 byte sector.

Cheers,

Doug

sorvad · Post by **sorvad** » Mon Jan 02, 2012 10:03 am

Using a CF it can appear as many separate DFS disks (on some CF systems, and you use a * command to select different disks) or one massive ADFS hard drive on systems such as RetroClinics Datacentre (which includes other stuff as well as a CF system).

The 256/512 byte sector basically halves the capacity of the CF card, but as these modern devices are massively larger than anything remotely envisaged back in the day it's not an issue in practice.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 2:00 pm

I have a 720K drive that I scavanged from an old Zenith HD Mini sport laptop, its an external one which I just plugged a made up ribbon cable to. I am not sure if its working or not.. '*.' gives the director listing as expected, <shift+break> does go as far as running !EXEC, and attemting to chain'menu' but then I get a disc error (the disc is Elite for B, B+, Master and co-pro). The DFS is the 8271 and the machine is my Odd Issue8 which I have scince found is one of the returned US market examples hence being screen printed with Issue1 (but in reality no such thing!) I think ist comes up with somthing like 'sector 10 not found' when it tried to load the menu

retroclinic · Post by **retroclinic** » Tue Jun 19, 2012 6:45 pm

Zaphod wrote:I have a 720K drive...The DFS is the 8271...

There be yer problem. 8271 + 3.5" =

There is a hack, but it's not reliable. Only proper way to use 3.5" is to use them with a 1770/2 interface.

Mark.

Zaphod · Post by **Zaphod** » Wed Jun 20, 2012 8:54 am

So I should resurect my B+128 or one of the masters?

TopBanana · Post by **TopBanana** » Fri Jun 22, 2012 8:20 pm

I recently purchased one of these. It looks the business and is much better looking than my BeebMaster dual drive that has no case.

: dual_floppy_1.jpg (71.28 KiB) Viewed 20630 times

From the item description they were configured as they should be, 1st drive as DS0 and second drive as DS1, straight through cable . Dual HD drives set up properly for the Beeb.

Or so I thought until it arrived.

Plugged it in to my Master ....

*Drive 0
*Cat

And Drive 0 lit up

*Drive 1
*Cat

And Drive 1 lit up

But neither drives were reading discs

So I took it to pieces last week in order to check everything was as it should be. It was an absolute bugger to get apart as most of it is stuck down, not screwed in place. I'm amazed I didn't break it

Everything was as it should be, links all in the correct place, right sort of cable without a twist, but it just didn't work.

Then I noticed the power rating for each drive - 960ma.

The PSU supplied was only 1amp - since the Beeb spins up doth drives even if you are only accessing one the drives were not getting enough power. A 2amp PSU fixed it immediately.

So in addition to all the information above and to avoid my mistake, make sure you are providing enough power, don't just assume.

aerworuld · Post by **aerworuld** » Wed Oct 24, 2012 4:56 pm

Continuing in my efforts to add a second drive to my AP3 I have progressed a little -

So I've picked up an internal (pc) 3.5" drive and a couple of different flat ribbon cables - one with three connectors marked system slave master with no twist and the other with three unmarked connectors and a twist. Which cable is my best plan?

I've read through the comments on here regarding power but I'm not sure how to power this drive externally with my elk setup?

Stuart

Post by **1024MAK** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 5:49 pm

Does your drive have any jumper shunts to set the drive unit number?
If yes, set it to the second lowest number (DS1 or DS2, whichever is lower). Then use a cable with no twists. Plug it in so that pin 1 on the drive (sometimes marked with a small triangle) connects to pin 1 on your interface. The side of the cable that is pin 1 is nomally marked with a coloured stripe.

If your drive is a more modern one, it will have no jumper shunts.
More later, cus typing on a so called smart phone is hard work...

aerworuld · Post by **aerworuld** » Thu Oct 25, 2012 6:14 pm

i know what you mean about typing on a phone!

thank you for the info - im sorted though hard wired a 5v power supply to the drive last night and it works a treat!

ozarnold · Post by **ozarnold** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 12:57 am

TopBanana wrote:I recently purchased one of these. It looks the business and is much better looking than my BeebMaster dual drive that has no case.

dual_floppy_1.jpg
From the item description they were configured as they should be, 1st drive as DS0 and second drive as DS1, straight through cable . Dual HD drives set up properly for the Beeb.

Or so I thought until it arrived.

Plugged it in to my Master ....

*Drive 0
*Cat

And Drive 0 lit up

*Drive 1
*Cat

And Drive 1 lit up

But neither drives were reading discs

So I took it to pieces last week in order to check everything was as it should be. It was an absolute bugger to get apart as most of it is stuck down, not screwed in place. I'm amazed I didn't break it

Everything was as it should be, links all in the correct place, right sort of cable without a twist, but it just didn't work.

Then I noticed the power rating for each drive - 960ma.

The PSU supplied was only 1amp - since the Beeb spins up doth drives even if you are only accessing one the drives were not getting enough power. A 2amp PSU fixed it immediately.

So in addition to all the information above and to avoid my mistake, make sure you are providing enough power, don't just assume.

Hi

Where did you source these from? I am looking for floppy drives for my Issue 4 Model B.

Thanks

Post by **1024MAK** » Wed Dec 12, 2012 12:55 pm

Contact Ben. His website is here: http://www.benophetinternet.nl/hobby/sales.htm
Tell him that you want the Shugart compatible type, that you will be using it on a Beeb, that you want the 2A PSU. He will also need to know which country you will be using it in, so he can supply the correct PSU for your mains sockets.
His contact details are on his web site.

Mark

johnha · Post by **johnha** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:35 pm

Hi All,

I have a couple of questions related to this and mixing a PC 3.5" with a 5.25" on my Master. I don't know much about floppy drives and their connectors at the moment:

As I understand it, if you don't twist lines 10-12 the PC drive appears as Drive 1 - is this a problem or does it just restrict whether you can boot off it (does the BEEB need to see Drive 0 as well as drive 1)?

If the above is a problem, can I use an straight-through cable (or 'untwisted' part of a PC cable) for the 3.5" on drive 1 and a 5.25" (again untwisted) for drive 0?

Or have I mis-understood how it works.

John.

CMcDougall · Post by **CMcDougall** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 6:59 pm

^spot on John, beeb/master/elk has no problem with not seeing drive02, its only on shift-break to boot it won't find it, so have to do *DR.1 (or3), *EXEC/RUN !boot to then see the untwisted PC drive.

I've had my 51/4" drive and PC 31/2" drive on together, so I could easily copy from 51/4" to 31/2" to read into OmniFlop very quickly. (hence why i started to investigate the PC drive, as am mad...

can I use an straight-through cable (or 'untwisted' part of a PC cable) for the 3.5" on drive 1 and a 5.25" (again untwisted) for drive 0?

yes

, that how i done it, as the PC drive is 'hard wired' to 1&3, and original beeb drive is 'hard wired' to 0&2

PS the 51/4" drive connectors are bigger/bulkier (on left)

johnha · Post by **johnha** » Thu Jan 31, 2013 10:45 pm

Thanks CMcDougall,

I was about to investigate this before I hit an unexpected snag. I'd gathered the bits together: old PC 3.5" drive & cable, broken external Atari ST drive (for the case & power supply) and camera to record the event but in the process had to get the ST out of the cupboard.

Before stripping the ST drive down I wanted to see if the track counter LEDs on it still worked, and thus connected the ST up. Chucked a disc in, track counter worked but it didn't read the disc, this was as I remember my last attempt to get it working. For some reason decided to swap the cable round the other way, hey presto one working ST external drive

- why this makes a difference is not clear to me!

As I don't want to strip a currently working drive apart, I now need to find another power supply...

...and will label the cable this time!

aerworuld · Post by **aerworuld** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 7:36 am

When I linked up a pc drive to my Elk I used a PSU from Maplin (and so consequently likely paid over the odds for it) it was one with many choices of heads so I just cut the connector off and soldered the wires to the pins on the back of the drive

Looking at the back of my drive and the 4 pin connector it was pins 2 and 4 and I seem to remember 4 was +ve but please check your drive as my memory is pants!

Stuart

Post by **danielj** » Fri Feb 01, 2013 9:02 am

PSU-wise, something like this is ideal:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320705061184

Post by **sydney** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 8:19 am

I have 2 (possibly 4!) chinon FB-354 drives from an amiga 1500 and they have jumpers for selecting df0/1 on the amiga. Would I just need a straight cable with two connectors to use both drives on and electron with a pegasus 400 interface?
Thanks,
simon

MartinB · Post by **MartinB** » Thu Feb 21, 2013 7:18 pm

Yep, just that. Set the id's to 0 and 1 and you should be away

Post by **sydney** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 4:14 pm

I have 2 chinon and 2 citizen drives, unfortunately one of the citizen drives appears dead. I've also got a brand new sony pc drive so I think I'll set one of the amiga drives up as 0 and 2 and use the pc drive as 1 and 3. And still no twist will be needed. I'm still going to need to make up a cable though as I only have a standard, very short pc cable with the pc twist and a cable from an amiga 1500 with a different twist and the motherboard end of the connector has one of the holes filled in. How long can these cables be safely made?

MartinB · Post by **MartinB** » Fri Feb 22, 2013 8:46 pm

Simon wrote:How long can these cables be safely made?

You should be fine up to about two metres. The Beeb & Elk use interleaved grounds (0v) in the cable which hugely reduces cross-talk and in cable-length terms, the signals and pulse widths involved won't be affected by the phase-shifting incurred at two metres. The only significant factor then is volts drop but if you use good quality cable and connectors, you'll be fine.

rharper · Post by **rharper** » Sat Mar 23, 2013 7:29 pm

aerworuld wrote:Continuing in my efforts to add a second drive to my AP3 I have progressed a little -

So I've picked up an internal (pc) 3.5" drive and a couple of different flat ribbon cables - one with three connectors marked system slave master with no twist and the other with three unmarked connectors and a twist. Which cable is my best plan?

I've read through the comments on here regarding power but I'm not sure how to power this drive externally with my elk setup?

Stuart

I have twin 3.5 inch drives on my Electron Pres AP34.
They are powered from an molex psu - 12V + 5V AC Adapter For HARD DISK Drive
from eBay
http://www.ebay.co.uk/sch/i.html?_nkw=1 ... acat=31510
They take about a month to arrive from china or hong kong or a few days from Manchester - but are £4.99 from there, still a snip really. They need a standard power cable.

Ray

BeebMaster · Post by **BeebMaster** » Mon Apr 01, 2013 12:56 pm

MartinB wrote:
Simon wrote:How long can these cables be safely made?
You should be fine up to about two metres. The Beeb & Elk use interleaved grounds (0v) in the cable which hugely reduces cross-talk and in cable-length terms, the signals and pulse widths involved won't be affected by the phase-shifting incurred at two metres. The only significant factor then is volts drop but if you use good quality cable and connectors, you'll be fine.

I have an extension lead on standby for those times when you need to connect Floppy drive zzz or Winnie yyy to Beeb xxx and it won't reach without demolishing the house. It's about 8-10 feet long and I've never had any trouble using it with Winchesters or floppies.

aerworuld · Post by **aerworuld** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:46 pm

just to check before i do it, am i safe to run a second 3.5" drive off the same power as the one i have?

I have a PC internal 3.5" floopy drive connected to my Elk's AP34 and powered from a 1.2A 5v dc supply and i'd like to add another (exactly the same) internal drive to this as my PRES disc drive has gone a bit wobbly this evening.

Stuart

Slo · Post by **Slo** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:50 pm

Yes that will be fine infact probably a little overkill but yes safe as houses

aerworuld · Post by **aerworuld** » Sun Apr 14, 2013 8:55 pm

Slo wrote:Yes that will be fine infact probably a little overkill but yes safe as houses

brilliant, thanks for confirming Slo

CMcDougall · Post by **CMcDougall** » Mon May 06, 2013 6:20 pm

an update for anyone wanting 2 drives on a master Compact!
the original drive is set at drive0 (or can change with slider on right side), and a PC drive that is hard wired as drive2

I was going to mount it properly with bits of wood in the PSU box, but could not be bothered, so i just stole two legs off the other drive! $\:D/$

I think the two wires poking out the original connector (probably joined) is so the light goes on when the original Sony drive0 is accessed. This is not needed with PC drive, as it light up on use anyways

EDIT : /\how it looks now, did not hack up black front, kept it inside box for future.
https://fbcdn-sphotos-g-a.akamaihd.net/ ... 1293_n.jpg

textbook · Post by **textbook** » Mon May 06, 2013 7:18 pm

danielj wrote:PSU-wise, something like this is ideal:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320705061184

Thx for posting that link.. might find a few uses for one of those.... gotta be worth a fiver with free delivery.

even if only for bench testing purposes.

retroclinic · Post by **retroclinic** » Wed May 08, 2013 9:35 am

textbook wrote:
danielj wrote:PSU-wise, something like this is ideal:

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/320705061184
Thx for posting that link.. might find a few uses for one of those.... gotta be worth a fiver with free delivery. even if only for bench testing purposes.

They go bang with more frequency than Beebmaster's LV ROM Drives! Stay well clear of those china cheapie PSUs. They also run VERY hot, when they do run at all!

stardot.org.uk

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